Effectiveness of BIPs

I've gone back to school recently and have been studying the "theory" behind functional behavior assessments and BIPs. My experience as a mother of a difficult child and the school is that the BIP is not an effective tool at all.

My question is...is it the implementation of the BIP that causes its failure, the lack of correctly identifying the function of the problem behavior or does a difficult child's "internal demons" throw a wrench in it?

Just as they are not universal medications or universal treatements that help every kid, nor will every BIP be effective.

How good was the FBA, would be the first question. How many people who have seen a difficult child's behavior issues were in on writing the FBA, would be another question - as opposed to heresay.

In regards to the BIP, the implementation of a BIP wouldn't cause it's failure - either the incorrect implementation, not following it at all, or a difficult child who has moved on to a different set of behaviors could all be factors. Additionally, were any members of the team writing the BIP ever wittnesses to successful redirection of said difficult child? Are the things listed in the BIP just "form" or are they real tried and true methods that have be susscessful in the past with this particular difficult child?

In order to write a successful FBA and ultimately a successful BIP, there has to be a clear understanding of the issues facing said difficult child. Sometimes identifying the function of a problem is very tricky and take several wacks before clear understanding dawns.

In my difficult children case I was extremely, extremely fortunate to have a group of caring educated professional and lay team members who understood the importance of the task and had both years of experience and an honest interest in my son's well being.

When it works, it usually works well. When it doesn't, it is usually dismal - but the reasons are rarely cut and dry across the board.

Thanks Sharon. So generally you think its effectiveness falls mainly on the team that writes it, assuming that a good FBA was done. Now that I have some theory behind the FBA and BIP, I was confused as to why they always failed with my difficult child because it should work beautifully.

So generally you think its effectiveness falls mainly on the team that writes it, assuming that a good FBA was done.

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That's not exactly what I said, a great team could write it - it could capture the difficult child perfectly - but it has to be implemented as well. There are many, many areas where the "system" can fail. I don't think there is ever one reason things fail at school with our difficult children. Just as they are very complicated, it is very complicated to deal with them.